# What movies or books do you take the "wrong" thing away from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 11, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402 "2010-09-11T14:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/201 "2011-06-22T15:48:43Z")
_Megamind:_ It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a convicted criminal who was serving consecutive life sentences when you broke jail. Just do **one** spectacularly good and heroic thing, and the public and the law alike will simply forgive and forget, no formal pardon necessary, and hail you as the new protector of the city – even if you murdered your predecessor. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/202 "2011-06-22T16:13:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That is a better message than the clearly **intended** one, which is that virtue is more important than intelligence – not in any scale of abstract values but in bringing material success. Sorry. Real-life Forrest Gumps can do a lot more than get by, but they do **not** get rich, not by their own labors. We’ve done this before, but I don’t think this was the intended message, and in any case it’s certainly not “clearly” so. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/203 "2011-06-22T16:42:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _Megamind:_ It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a convicted criminal who was serving consecutive life sentences when you broke jail. Just do **one** spectacularly good and heroic thing, and the public and the law alike will simply forgive and forget, no formal pardon necessary, and hail you as the new protector of the city – even if you murdered your predecessor. What I took from the movie was no matter how hard you tried sometimes you can’t win unless the other person gets tired of beating you so often ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/204 "2011-06-22T23:45:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I tell ya, the message I take away is that “law is even worse than crime.” I don’t care who the suspect is or how unsympathetic a character or how horrible the crime or how obvious the guilt; when Jack McCoy is at the other table I **always** want him/her to walk. Apparently no law was so stupid, so inhumane or so outrageously unjust that McCoy wouldn’t insist that we still have to follow it because T **he** Law is **The** Law. I took to calling McCoy the Grand Inquisitor of New York. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/205 "2011-06-23T02:24:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _Megamind:_ It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a convicted criminal who was serving consecutive life sentences when you broke jail. Just do **one** spectacularly good and heroic thing, and the public and the law alike will simply forgive and forget, no formal pardon necessary, and hail you as the new protector of the city – even if you murdered your predecessor. What’s more, it works even if you save the city from a threat **you created yourself, solely for your own amusement.** ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/206 "2011-06-23T02:28:04Z")
> [@67java89](#): > > My husband found the movie to be inspiring in a “he lived his life on his own terms” kind of way, but I had the opposite reaction. Starvation is a horrible way to die. Wait, did I miss something? My vague memories of the movie depict him dying of having mistakenly foraged some poisonous plant. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/207 "2011-06-23T02:43:23Z")
At first they thought he had eaten some toxic root, confusing it with another root; then they thought he had eaten some seeds he had stored in a damp Ziploc bag and they got moldy, and the mold killed him. They speculated that if he hadn’t already lost so much weight he might have been able to fight off whatever toxic effects either the roots or the seeds might have given him; they were thought to be toxic because they would paralyze his stomach or something, making him unable to digest anything he did eat. But I think in the end they concluded that he had just gotten too weak to go searching for more food and died of starvation. At the time the movie was being made, they were still going with the toxic root theory, so that’s what’s in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/208 "2011-06-23T02:44:37Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > At first they thought he had eaten some toxic root, confusing it with another root; then they thought he had eaten some seeds he had stored in a damp Ziploc bag and they got moldy, and the mold killed him. They speculated that if he hadn’t already lost so much weight he might have been able to fight off whatever toxic effects either the roots or the seeds might have given him; they were thought to be toxic because they would paralyze his stomach or something, making him unable to digest anything he did eat. But I think in the end they concluded that he had just gotten too weak to go searching for more food and died of starvation. > > At the time the movie was being made, they were still going with the toxic root theory, so that’s what’s in the movie. Oh that makes sense. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/209 "2011-06-23T03:13:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I tell ya, the message I take away is that “law is even worse than crime.” I don’t care who the suspect is or how unsympathetic a character or how horrible the crime or how obvious the guilt; when Jack McCoy is at the other table I **always** want him/her to walk. Remember Michael Moriarty? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/210 "2011-06-23T03:26:37Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > At first they thought he had eaten some toxic root, confusing it with another root; then they thought he had eaten some seeds he had stored in a damp Ziploc bag and they got moldy, and the mold killed him. They speculated that if he hadn’t already lost so much weight he might have been able to fight off whatever toxic effects either the roots or the seeds might have given him; they were thought to be toxic because they would paralyze his stomach or something, making him unable to digest anything he did eat. But I think in the end they concluded that he had just gotten too weak to go searching for more food and died of starvation. AFAIK it wasn’t really “they” who considered various poisoning explanations for McCandless’s death, it was mostly just _Into the Wild_ author Jon Krakauer. Krakauer has been criticized by some for going searching for a poisoning explanation when starvation seems like the obvious cause of death. However, McCandless’s diary says that he thought he was sick from the seeds he’d eaten, so it’s not like Krakauer invented the idea himself. > [@](#): > > At the time the movie was being made, they were still going with the toxic root theory, so that’s what’s in the movie. The poisonous plant explanation also works better onscreen than the moldy seeds and is more dramatic than starvation. In the movie, we see that McCandless is feeling really bad, he checks his plant guide, and he sees that there’s a poisonous plant that looks a lot like the safe plant he _thought_ he ate. IIRC there’s no voice-over or anything, it plays out visually. It’s hard to think of a way the character could be shown to have figured out that he’s about to die from toxic mold or starvation. Although the movie could have used the sister’s voice-over to explain some other cause of death, it makes for better cinema to stick with our main character and have him realize that he’s doomed. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/211 "2011-06-23T04:18:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve mentioned this before, but _The Breakfast Club_ sucks if you’re a nerd. Everyone else gets a love interest, the nerd gets the privilege of getting to do everyone else’s homework for them. > > And **Zsofia** , I’m not so sure that Kubrick didn’t intend for the DI to be an object of sympathy. Yeah, you can certainly see that his privates hate his guts, but it’s also very clear that he’s doing one Hell of a job of teaching them and getting them in shape. That business of making Joker responsible for Pyle’s success or failure? Sure, it got Pyle into shape, but he was also grooming Joker to become a leader. If Ermey’s character wasn’t meant to be sympathetic, it would have been a lot easier to make him incompetent than to show him as competent as he was. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > THANK YOU!!! > > I’ve mentioned my longstanding hatred of this movie at least once on the boards many years ago, and occasionally in real life, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else express the same opinion. > > The worst part is that it’s played as a happy ending for everyone, as if that’s all the nerd could possibly want or hope for. I can’t watch this movie without becoming angry and depressed for the rest of the day! > > The other worst part is that the rest of the movie is so classic, I want to keep watching it whenever I come across it on TV, and then I end up unhappy. I’ve always said that if I ever see John Hughs I’m going to punch him in the mouth for this. Don’t think being dead gets him off the hook! He’s buried somewhere, and jawbones take a long time to decompose! I don’t get this: The strong stoic jock, showed emotion The shy crazy girl, showed her outgoing personality The guy who doesn’t care, showed he cares The stuck up superficial girl, laughs at herself and learns appearances aren’t everything And the brown nosing, suck-up nerd, writes like a 10 sentence fuck you to the principal instead of doing the assignment. (or anyone else’s assignment) Happy Ending, They all get a bit of freedom from the pigeon hole of high school clicks. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/212 "2011-06-23T04:28:21Z")
> [@j66](#): > > Remember Michael Moriarty? But dimly. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/213 "2011-06-23T06:03:39Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > **The Pursuit of Happyness** , a father has a responsibility to give up selfish pipe dreams and work at McDonalds if he has too in order to feed and shelter his family. UMMM, if he has a kid, it’s his RESPONSIBILITY to provide for him! :rolleyes: He needs to put his ego aside and do right by his son! ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/214 "2011-06-23T15:21:42Z")
**Sleeping Beauty:** Roofies are awesome! Also, rape is ok if you’re rich and good looking ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/215 "2011-06-23T15:37:25Z")
Kindergarten Cop: all problems can be solved by punching someone ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/216 "2011-06-23T16:06:13Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > If you’re talking about the book _Into the Wild_ and not the movie, I don’t know that it was really intended to have a “message” in the sense of a moral. I think it was more about solving the mystery of why Christopher McCandless of Fairfax, VA, who hadn’t been seen or heard from by his family in two years, was found dead in Alaska’s Denali National Park. I think the book is about more than just reporting on a disappearance. It’s not easy to put into a simple ‘message’ – which is part of why I think it’s a good book – but I think at heart it’s about taking chances away from a simple, boring, member-of-the-herd life, and whether those risks are worth it. Krakauer’s crazy solo trip that he recounts in the book didn’t kill him, and McCandless’s did; I think the book asks (but doesn’t answer; again that’s why it’s good) whether it was worth it taking that kind of potentially deadly chance to avoid a life of gray mediocrity. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/217 "2011-06-23T17:46:50Z")
[hijack] See the TVTropes page [Values Dissonance](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ValuesDissonance) for examples (cinematic, literary, etc.) where the intended message is clear enough, and shocking to a modern audience. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/218 "2011-06-24T01:25:24Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > UMMM, if he has a kid, it’s his RESPONSIBILITY to provide for him! :rolleyes: He needs to put his ego aside and do right by his son! Yeah, I agree with you. The message I got from the movie was all the bad that comes with a father being selfish. That’s not what the writer had in mind. Do you not understand the op? ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/219 "2011-06-24T01:54:05Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Yeah, I agree with you. The message I got from the movie was all the bad that comes with a father being selfish. That’s not what the writer had in mind. Do you not understand the op? Soory **Sitnam**. :smack: I understand the OP. Just got on a contrarian role. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/220 "2011-06-28T00:09:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But dimly. I might be wrong, but I believe Michael Moriary left what turned into the most sucessful television franchise because he agreed with you. He did not like the direction the show was taking the character of the DA. I will look for a cite … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402.md?page=12)